Generally, drug delivery devices (such as inhalers, syringes, intravenous bags, implantable drug delivery systems, transdermal patches, pill bottles, liquid medicine bottles, eyedroppers, etc.) store drugs until the drugs are required by a user. There are numerous occasions when it would be desirable to render the drugs contained within such drug delivery devices ineffective either automatically or manually in order to prevent the drug from being improperly released into the public (e.g., though the public water supply, through the garbage, etc.) or improperly obtained (e.g., through tampering of the drug delivery device).
It was the understanding and recognition of these and other problems associated with the conventional art that formed the impetus for the embodiments exemplarily described herein.